


where death is waiting,

by skeletalparade (boythighs)



Series: through living hell [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Heavy Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Trans Male Character, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 01:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8947369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boythighs/pseuds/skeletalparade
Summary: It has been sixty days.Yuuri walks into the kitchen and crosses out another little square on the calendar with his black marker, and stares at the filled up page. There is one more day until month’s end, and Yuuri still wonders if all three of them will live through it. Two months ago, the thought had never even crossed his mind. Now, it haunts him. Every waking moment is plagued with the question of, “Will we live?”And none of them ever know the answer.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the character death is only mentioned, and isn't graphic at all. 
> 
> anyway, unapologetic zombie au.

It has been sixty days.

Yuuri walks into the kitchen and crosses out another little square on the calendar with his black marker, and stares at the filled up page. There is one more day until month’s end, and Yuuri still wonders if all three of them will live through it. Two months ago, the thought had never even crossed his mind. Now, it haunts him. Every waking moment is plagued with the question of, “Will we live?”

And none of them ever know the answer.

The pandemic had out-broken practically overnight, internationally. Someone had planted the virus in cities all over the world, and still there is no trace of evidence leading towards the culprit. Not that anyone has the time to sit down and start asking people questions when the whole world is slowly dissolving into a zombie cesspool. Yuuri never thought he’d see this become a reality. This was the kind of thing in movies that had given him nightmares as a child, and here he is, 26, and living in the very real tangibility of it. 

He is obsessed with keeping track of the time because it helps him cope. Every day he gets to x off is another day that he is alive, and that is all that is helping him get through this. It is the only thing keeping him sane on most days. 

The door to the apartment flies open with a bang, and Yurio comes stomping in. He drops his backpack on their tiny card table turned dining table, and fumbles to unzip it in a hurry. Every movement of his hands is stunted and stiff, like his hands aren’t working quite right or like he is fighting to act normal.

“The rations are shit this week.” He says, sounding severely aggravated. His head is tilted down, blonde bangs veiling his face. Yuuri squints, noting the odd behavior, walking over and taking Yurio by the face. Yurio is caught off guard and jerks his head away with a yelp, but not quickly enough for Yuuri to miss the dark purple bruise forming around his left eye.

“What happened?” Yuuri asks him gently, setting his hands on Yurio’s to still them where they still fidget with the backpack’s zipper. Yurio hesitates before answering, refusing to look Yuuri in the eye even when he finally does speak.

“I got into an argument with one of the guards, because I saw that he was shortchanging us.” Yurio wets his lips, shrugging. “Just… I know that you need to eat, you  _ and  _ Viktor. I called him out on not giving us the right amount of food that we’re registered for, and he told me I was crazy. So I swung.” He shrugs again, eyes fixed on his backpack, bracing himself to be reprimanded. He is so, so young, and this is not the life he deserves.

Yuuri would like to be mad at him for acting out so childishly and for being so irrational, but knows that he can’t. Not when Yurio’s intentions were pure and selfless. It’s odd to see him like this when just two short months ago he had been so arrogant and prideful, but the end of the world does strange things to everyone, Yuuri supposes. He abandons Yurio to go and fish the first-aid kit out from beneath the leaky sink, which Viktor keeps promising to fix but never does, then, Yuuri grabs an ice pack from the freezer. Yurio is already sitting at the table waiting for him when Yuuri comes back over, setting the first-aid kit down next to the backpack, and puts the pack in Yurio’s lap. Yurio holds in his hands, something to do with them, and Yuuri notices how red his knuckles are. He sighs, and shakes his head.

Yurio flinches away at the first touch of Yuuri’s hand, and Yuuri levels him with a look. 

“Be still, you did this to yourself." Yuuri's voice is stern. "You have a cut.” 

Yurio glares at him, but doesn’t dare move again as Yuuri finishes cleaning the cut and applying some ointment to it. “Thank you for sticking up for us. But next time, maybe try not to let things turn violent, alright?” Yurio scoffs and doesn't agree, but he doesn't disagree, either, and Yuuri knows that that's about as much as he's going to get out of him. It's better than nothing at all. Yuuri smiles at him, but Yurio's not paying attention. If he was, he would berate Yuuri for being soft, and tell him to toughen the fuck up. This is old hat, by now. 

As Yuuri packs up the kit, the front door opens for a second time. Viktor walks in, smelling of the outside world and looking tired, worn out from being out all morning. Yuuri is bombarded by the scent of him, and they are not the same smells as Yurio bears; Yurio's are from the city, the sanction, mildew and smog. Viktor smells distinctly of rot and decay: the infested world. Yuuri very deliberately does not acknowledge his presence, and finishes packing up the kit without once turning to regard him, which Yurio picks up on with a roll of his eyes. Yuuri ignores that, too. 

“Again?” Yurio mumbles to Yuuri, frowning. “Why can’t you both just grow up and talk things out?”

“I asked him not to go, and he refused to listen.” Yuuri says back quietly, taking the first-aid box and skirting around the table, back into the kitchen while Viktor takes off his coat and throws it over the armchair in the living room. 

The apartment isn’t, by any means, grandiose. There is one bedroom, a pull-out couch in the living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. All of the furniture is ratty and old, beaten up, scavenged from dumps and abandoned houses. The bed creaks and practically all of the springs are broken, the pull-out mattress smells like piss, and the water is hardly ever hot or entirely clean. It’s disgusting, and all three of them hate it, but it’s the closest thing they have to a home. It’s the only safe place they know, these days. Safer than the alternatives, anyway.

“How’d it go?” Yurio asks as Viktor collapses onto the couch. Yuuri keeps his back turned to pretend he isn’t listening, messing around in the sink with some of the dirty dishes, though he has no intentions of washing them. Really, he is hyper-focused on every word that Viktor says. Yuuri's heart is pounding, unbearably anxious, latching onto every word out of Viktor’s mouth. He clings to the sound of his voice, knowing that any day could be the last time he is blessed enough to hear it.

“Not terribly.” Viktor sighs, head tipping back against the back of the couch and eyes fluttering closed. “There were only two run-ins this morning. Both were easy to handle. No casualties or attacks. We managed to find some dry wood, a few guns, some ammo. Looked like someone had been camping around the gates for a few days. No telling what happened to them…” Viktor trails off, and Yuuri slumps over the sink, hands white-knuckled around the edge of the counter. He relaxes his grip and takes a few deep breaths. Viktor is safe. He's fine. He's sitting in their living room, and he's okay.

Viktor is safe, but Yuuri is still angry. 

He spins around and stalks out of the kitchen, right past the couch and into the bedroom, door slamming shut behind him. He tries to ground himself with the fact that the reconnaissance had gone smoothly, but he can’t find any consolation in it when he knows that Viktor will be right back out there in a few days, no matter how much Yuuri begs him not to go. Yuuri sits down on the edge of the bed, arms wrapping around his abdomen, head hanging low and eyes squeezed shut as he blocks out the demons nagging at him, tugging at the lobes of his ears to try and get him to lose it, to give in to their nasty, foul promises of death and destruction.

All he wants is for Viktor to stop going out with the others. Not because he doesn’t think Viktor can handle himself, but because he knows that when recon goes wrong, it goes  _ horribly  _ wrong. It would take nothing more than just the group of them stumbling across a nest - even one of smaller proportions would outweigh the size of a recon team - and everything would go straight to shit, just like that. They all know it. They’ve seen it happen. It’s how Phichit, and Chris, and JJ were all lost. Yuuri has seen too many people who were important to him be lost to the outbreak… it can’t happen to Viktor. Not with what’s at stake, not when there is so much to lose. Yuuri's stomach pulses, flipping upside down, and it almost feels like he might be sick. He swallows it down.

When the door opens, Yuuri doesn’t look up, nor does he when the mattress dips down at his side. Viktor doesn’t try to touch him because he can tell that Yuuri doesn’t want him to, and for that, Yuuri is thankful. If Viktor tried to hold him right now, he might have a breakdown, for the second time today. This morning had been bad; there had been crying and shouting, and Yuuri is just glad that Yurio had already gone out by the time that the argument had taken place, otherwise he may have heard some of the cruelest things Yuuri has ever let leave his mouth. He hadn't meant any of it, of course, and Viktor knows that just as well as he does. Yuuri is just a desperate man trying to cling on to the one good thing he has: his family. A large portion of which consists of Viktor, and parts of Viktor.

“You’re still mad.” It isn’t a question, because Viktor doesn’t need an answer to what he already knows. He goes on, knowing that Yuuri doesn't have anything to say yet. “Yuuri, I’m fine. Everything went perfectly well, and no one was hurt. The only infected we saw are hardly worth talking about.”

“But what if it doesn’t go as well next time, Viktor?” The words fly out of his mouth uninhibited, exactly what's on his mind. Yuuri sits upright, turning to look at Viktor with fear in his eyes, and it kills him when he does not see the fear reflected. “You should be terrified of it, of the chance that something awful might happen. But you’re not - and that scares me. It _horrifies_ me. That you could - that you could be so okay with losing everything, that it never crosses your mind-”

“It does cross my mind, but living in fear, holing ourselves up in here, that doesn’t solve anything either. Do you want us to be trapped here forever?”

Yuuri looks away, down at the floor, and feels the tears welling up in his eyes. They sting, tiny pinpricks of knives jabbing into his eyeballs. It’s irrational, but he’s afraid that if he cries he might never stop crying again. He might drown the whole world in tears, but at least then all of this would finally be over. There would be no fear in heaven, would there?

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Viktor asks, voice just above a whisper.

“No.” Yuuri sniffs, goes quiet, and then changes his mind after a moment of consideration. “Yes.”

Viktor draws him in, one arm around his shoulders, and the other hand coming to rest over his stomach. He presses his forehead to Yuuri’s temple, and sighs. It's so comforting to have Viktor so close, but Yuuri can't shake his demons. With every inhale, Yuuri is reminded of his fears: the fear of losing Viktor, the fear of losing their future, the fear of not being able to protect Yurio and himself if anything were to happen to Viktor. Because there is no deniability in the fact that Viktor is the strongest of them, and that Yuuri is the weakest. 

He is not  _ weak  _ \- but he  _ is  _ the weakest. He refuses to pick up a gun, even though he has one. The thought of killing someone, even someone who is a monster, it is something that Yuuri just cannot resolve himself to do. When his parents had turned, he had _run._ He had not been strong enough to put them out of their misery, because they were still his parents. They had still raised him, they had still nurtured him, and cared for him, and loved him, and it was then that he knew that he would never have it in him to kill. He couldn’t, not knowing that underneath the rotting skin they were all still humans in some way. Yurio kept reminding him that they weren’t. Everyone who turned ceased to be human, he would say, but Yuuri just… couldn’t come to terms with it, and he likely never would. 

What if Viktor turned? Would Yurio expect him to just kill him?

No. Yuuri couldn’t do it. He  _ wouldn’t _ . And regardless of what Yurio would say, neither would he. They were a family now, and Yuuri would sooner let himself be eaten alive by one of them than kill either of them. 

“I worry every single time I go out there.” Viktor whispers to him. “I think, today could be the day. I could have told Yuuri goodbye for the last time this morning.”

“Then why do you go?” Yuuri doesn’t understand it, wishes that he could. No amount of explaining it could ever rationalize it for him, though, because in his heart Yuuri just can't fathom turning his back on his family every couple of days just to find some faulty materials, possibly leaving the people he loves behind for good just for the sake of total strangers. Strangers who would just as quickly turn around and stab him in the back if it meant a chance for survival.

“Because the sanction needs us to go out there and find what we can. There are kids here, too.” Viktor rubs his hand over Yuuri’s stomach, fingers tender and soft as they stroke back and forth, Viktor strumming all the right chords to appeal to Yuuri's sensitivities. “Kids who deserve to live just as much as me, or you, or Yurio, and us going out there and finding things for the sanction means that they get to survive for another day.”

Yuuri sighs and melts into Viktor’s arms, tired and sore, stress and exhaustion eating away at him more and more with each day that passes. It’s only been two months, but there are times when it feels like it’s been a lifetime, a hundred years. Maybe a thousand. And it never gets any easier, despite how much Yuuri longs for it to.

“I always dreamed of having a family someday.” Yuuri whispers into the space between them, staring at the wall opposite the bed. The paint is peeling, and in another life, Yuuri might ask Viktor to repaint the whole room. A pastel blue would be nice. Better than the dingy, stained white it is right now. “I just never thought it would be like this. I never thought I would be waking up every day so scared that it would be my last.”

Viktor laughs, but there is no mirth in it. There hardly ever is, these days. 

“You and me both, love.” Viktor presses a kiss to his temple, and opens his mouth to speak, but he is cut off by the loud siren floating in through the walls from outside. They tear apart, both of them turning to the window on the other side of the room, eyes equally as wide, mouths hanging open.

“No,” Viktor breathes. “No, that’s not possible. There weren’t any…”

The door bursts open, Yurio standing in the doorway looking frenzied. “Turn on the radio.” He orders. Yuuri and Viktor are both frozen, though, and watch as Yuuri goes lunging over the bed to turn the radio on and fiddle with the channels until the static is replaced by words just barely clear enough to understand, sentences that fade in and out.

“There has been… outbreak… Sector 4…  hour ago…”

The line turns back to static, the connection lost, and all Yuuri can do is stare at the tinny black radio, tears streaming down his face. 

And just like that, it's over. 

“We have to go.” Viktor says, but the words float in through one ear and directly out of the other. Yuuri watches through unfocused eyes as Viktor and Yurio jump up and begin to dart around the apartment, gathering everything that will fit into their backpacks. Maybe Viktor grabs the guns and the ammo, and maybe Yurio is grabbing supplies like errant food and water. Yuuri doesn’t know for sure - everything is happening underwater, muffled and stifled, and entirely indecipherable. His head feels like it is stuffed with cotton, pulse fast and loud as it rushes through his skull. 

This day was always bound to come, Yuuri just hoped he’d never have to live to see it.

“Yuuri? Yuuri, baby, please, you have to focus on me, okay? Baby, can you hear me?” Viktor is kneeling down in front of him, hands on his arms, eyes filled with fear. The same fear that Yuuri has always felt. Finally, Viktor gets it. “Sweetheart, snap out of it.” His voice is so desperate. Why does he sound so scared?  “Yuuri! Yuuri, come on! Wake up!” 

Yuuri jerks back into his body with a snap and a jolt, immediately becoming acutely aware of how violently he is shaking. He’s outright sobbing, wailing, arms wrapped tightly around himself like he is trying to hold everything inside. Why is this happening? What did any of them do to deserve any of this?

“Baby, baby, please calm down. We have to go, alright? Can you stand up for me?” Yuuri nods and Viktor helps him get to his feet. The sirens are blaring outside, louder than Yuuri remembers them being just moments ago. “Good, that’s good.” 

Viktor’s hands are shaking on Yuuri’s arms, and Yuuri is so scared he can’t breathe. But he has to keep it together. He can’t afford to zone out again. Who knows how long they have left, now?

Viktor leads him out of the bedroom and helps him get a backpack onto his shoulders. Yurio watches from the door, and his eyes - those eyes fitting only for a soldier - are saturated with dread. With fear like Yuuri has never seen on Yurio before.

They leave the apartment and rush down the hall outside, stumbling down the stairwell one behind the other. Yuuri is caked between Yurio and Viktor, who stands behind him and keeps a hand pressed to the small of his back the whole way out of the building. The sky outside is bright and blue, not how Yuuri had imagined it would be. He’d imagined it would be red and bleeding for all of them, filled with the blood of the damned, maybe. Like it was in the movies.

Instead, it looks like it might on any regular day, if not just a little more dim than it had been before the virus. 

The streets are filled with people trying to get out, trying to get to the gates. People are screaming, pushing, and shoving, absolute madness at every turn. The sirens are deafening, so loud that even with Viktor screaming right into his ear, Yuuri still _almost_ misses what he says.

“Hold on to one another! Don’t let the crowds separate us!” 

Yuuri reaches out in front of him and grabs hold of Yurio’s shirt on command, Yurio glancing back at him just briefly as he begins to carve out a path for the three of them, weaving through the crowd with his arms stretched out in front of him. Off to the side, Yuuri hears a mother screaming for her child, begging someone to help her find him, and Yuuri feels her terror tangibly in the pit of his stomach. Heavy, like a rock. Viktor grips the back of his shirt like a lifeline, silently urging him to keep following Yurio, to stay tethered to the here and now.

They make their way through the crowd, tripping and knocking everyone out of their way, disregarding the masses as they make it safely to an alleyway completely devoid of people. Viktor emerges from behind Yuuri and starts to walk forward, to lead them down the alley to what Yuuri can only pray is a way out, but Yurio stops him. 

“Wait!” He says, snagging Viktor by the elbow. He looks wild in the eyes, giving Viktor pause. “We have to find Otabek.”

“Yurio-”

“No!” Yurio shouts. “No, I am not leaving without him!”

“Yurio, there are too many people, we won’t be able to find him!” Viktor shakes his head, shaking his arm loose, determined to keep moving. 

“Would you be alright with me saying that to you about Yuuri, then?” Yurio shoots back, adamant. Viktor looks furious, but he stops. Yuuri has never seen Yurio this worked up, but he knows that Yurio is being entirely fair. As much as it scares Yuuri to be here a second longer, he knows that it’s only right for them to find Otabek before they leave. He's just as important to Yurio as Yuuri is to Viktor.

“Viktor, he’s right.” Viktor glances at Yuuri from the corners of his eyes, and curses loudly. He spins around and leads them back into the crowd, which has only grown in the minute or two that they’ve wasted in the alley. 

“What compound was he staying in?” Viktor yells, and Yurio shoves past both of them, taking the lead once more. Yuuri keeps scanning the crowd just in case Otabek is already looking for them, trying to keep himself distracted from the reality of what’s going on around them. He has to stay as calm as possible - if he allows himself to become too stressed… god, no, he can't think about that. His hand falls to his abdomen, fisting the fabric of his shirt over his stomach as he sucks in a deep, steadying breath.

“Over there!” Yurio shouts, pointing at Otabek. He’s searching, too, and when he meets Yurio’s eyes, the two of them make a mad dash for one another, knocking people out of the way as they all but leap into each other’s arms. Viktor grabs hold of Yuuri again, and snatches at Yurio by his backpack. There's no time for the reunion right now. They haven't made it out of the woods just yet, anything could happen between here and freedom.

“Come on, we have to leave  _ right  _ now!” This time Yurio doesn’t argue, and the four of them make a run for the alley, tearing down it. Their footsteps thunder on the rough, uneven pavement, resonating against the walls of the building on either side of them and echoing loudly. At the other end of the alley, Viktor takes a direct right, guiding them to a fence with a hole cut open in the bottom. 

“Get under!” He shouts, holding the chainlink aside for them as much as it will allow. Yurio goes first, because he’s the smallest, followed by Yuuri, then Otabek, and then Viktor, who just barely fits, but his movements are practiced enough that he makes it work. The further they run from the fence, the more far away the sirens sound. On this side, there are no people. Just the four of them running closer and closer to the outside perimeter, past the old houses that used to form a suburban neighborhood, but are now more common for squatters who can’t afford to live in actual compounds. They’d had to live in one, too, very briefly, before Viktor had signed up to work recon and the officials had given them an apartment as compensation. 

Viktor leads them to a side gate, one that is locked up and no longer used for anyone other than the recon teams. It leads directly out into the woods around the sanction, a much more dangerous path than the roads that the main gate leads out onto. But the main gate is a madhouse, and it is now infinitely more of a risk to wait around to get out there than it is to make a break for the trees. 

It’s been almost two months since Yuuri had last seen real nature. The large buildings in the sanction block it all out, and none of the guards let anyone go out this far, or get this close. It’s too perilous. It’s a death wish. And here they are, running right into the belly of the beast.

Viktor fumbles with the lock on the gate, hands shaking and struggling to get the key into the keyhole. Yuuri watches and holds his breath when it finally slides in. The snick of it is far too loud in the silence of them, and when the gate swings open, none of them move, not even Viktor. This isn’t recon, anymore, and it seems to be the first time that it is actually hitting him. Before the danger had always just been lurking around the corners. The guards were good at what they did, they had protected the sanction well until now. None of them had ever imagined that it would come to this - to fleeing from the sanction, out into the open world. Out there, they will be on their own, unprotected, entirely susceptible to whatever awaits them.

Viktor swallows, looks at Yuuri, and nods. He takes the first step, one foot in front of the other, and the four of them leave the sanction behind. 

The trees swallow them up, and through the branches and the canopy of leaves, the sirens fade into nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> i peppered some hints for Something throughout this first part. if you caught it, lemme know down in the comments below!!
> 
> the second part of this series should come out relatively soon. it was quick and fun to write. i'm gonna be writing fics for this series while simultaneously working on Catching Butterflies, so don't worry: i'm gonna finish that one, too. scout's honor.
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/yuurikatsukiss), where i scream about yoi and talk about my fics pretty much constantly. come join the meme team.


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